Hurricane Season
by gingersnapper
Summary: Responses to Beloved Enemy's 100 Nights of Summer Theme Challenge...One-shots of Xellos and Filia, most set a few years after TRY.
1. You want me to wear what?

This is a response to Beloved Enemy's 100 Nights of Summer Xellos/Filia fanfic challenge- I'm going to try to do some of these, but I am still pretty new to writing fic, so I hope they are okay...

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, or Slayers. I, in fact, own very little of anything.

Thank you for reading!

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Prompt #48 **You want me to wear *what*?**

Xellos had grown accustomed to believing that he had no dignity. Pride, yes; style, absolutely…but dignity? He had assumed that the last shred of whatever dignity he had possessed had long ago been discarded in the endless maintenance of a façade of harmlessness. If he was honest with himself, his well-honed sense of humor often found puckish delight in silly antics, and if others underestimated him because of them, so much the better. In any case, dignity was not a term that came to readily to mind when referring to Lina Inverse and her party. To travel without dignity was to travel light, and to defend one's dignity was simply to provide an opening for attack.

But he was defending it now, violently. It was one thing, he reasoned, to change his physical being into that of a shapely woman, it was one thing to wear a fish person costume, it was one thing to soften and lift his voice to foppish whine, or to place himself in all manner of compromising and potentially embarrassing situations.

It was quite another to wear…The Item in Question.

Lina would have been in hysterics if she heard that Xellos was citing his 'dignity' as an excuse.

But he was. And the tall blonde in front of him was having none of it. She shifted her weight onto one full, shapely hip in a motion that dripped with disapproval and snarled at him, The Item in Question hanging off of a long, elegant hand.

"Don't you make excuses to me, mister," she hissed, "No one else will do it, the teachers are having a fuss, and Val has been crying all night because, and I quote, 'I can't enjoy the school festival if it doesn't have one.'"

"Why don't you do it?" he glanced around sharply for a means of escape. This had not been what he had in mind when Filia had begged ('begged' was a good word for it. Certainly better than 'coerced') him to help out with Val's school festival.

Filia, of course, was in charge of the festival preparations. She had truly blossomed with motherhood, and he was constantly amazed to see her transform into a warrior mother of epic proportion. When faced with teachers, schoolyard bullies, other mothers, pediatricians, Parent-Teacher Organizations, bake sales or fire drills, the naïve, bashful priestess was replaced by a whirlwind of organization and efficiency. She was on every committee, every chaperone list, and every disaster was duly passed off to her with the whispered sigh of relief that "Thank God, _Filia_ is handling it!"

It was Xellos's personal opinion that she simply bulldogged every obstacle and left opposition stunned, hogtied, and wondering what had hit them.

He was _not_ going to be bulldogged!

He continued desperately, "It would be cute on you! On me it would just be creepy! Do you really want to inflict that on school children? Why can't you wear it?"

"Because," and here Filia gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled her eyes heavenwards, "I'm already baking all the cakes for the cake walk, donating vases to the raffle _and _running the entire preschool nursery. I also have to present all the prizes _while _wrangling at least a dozen children." She glared at him, "Do you _know_ how _fragile_ human children are? I have to be _very, very_ careful with them. They break _so_ easily!"

"I'm not sure 'break' is the right word for it," Xelloss interposed pensively, "What you tend to do is more of a 'squish'…."

Filia gave him a _look_.

"I can't wear it if I'm caring for children. I need to have," she paused as if considering her words, "_full range of motion_. And I can't if I'm wearing…The Item in Question. Besides, I don't think it will fit over my hips. You have a much better figure than I do."

Xellos glared at her. "I'll have you know," he said, open-eyed, his voice low and dangerous with restrained anger, "That despite our, " he looked her up and down appraisingly, "_cozy_ domestic situation, I am still one of the most powerful Mazoku in existence, the Priest-General of the Zelas Metallium, and if you think for one _second_ that _I_ am going to _humiliate_ myself for your pleasure, you, my darling, have quite a lot of learning to do!"

After such a display of power and displeasure, Xellos was used to opponents fainting, soiling themselves or cowering in fear.

Filia just stomped a few paces closer to stare him full in the face. "You know," she said, her bright blue eyes locking with his steely violet ones, "You can be such a _jerk_! Give me one good reason why you won't wear it!"

The Item in Question lay draped haphazardly over the couch, but it did nothing to mitigate the complete disaster of its design. A pale purple and pink spotted crushed velvet unitard comprised the foundation, with a decadent splash of bright pink sequins and rhinestones tracing a shooting star from the left hip to shoulder. From the backside of the leotard hung a heavy, sparkling waterfall of glittery purple fibers tied together at the seam with a jaunty pink bow. There were matching patent leather pink thigh-high platform boots cleverly designed to look like hooves, and matching elbow length gloves. The whole glorious affair was topped by a towering horse headdress with coquettishly sparking cartoon eyes, an awkwardly braided purple mane and a two-foot-long, sparking pink horn.

It looked as though someone had found a five-year-old's candy-colored crayon fantasy and set about bringing it to life. Very, very literally.

It looked as though a fairy princess had vomited sparkles onto a taxidermied donkey.

It looked as though, through some abortion of nature, child's toy pony had grown up to realize his dream of being a low-rent burlesque queen.

"It's a Sparkling Unicorn costume," he hissed.

"It hardly has any glitter on it," Filia responded smoothly.

"But, Filia," Xellos nearly screamed, "It's a _SPARKLING UNICORN COSTUME_!"

"No one will know who you are under that headdress," Filia replied cajolingly, "Besides, if you wear this for me today," she whispered huskily, "I'll wear anything you want tonight."

...

... Perhaps a Sparkling Unicorn costume wasn't _so_ bad.

And it would make Val happy…

And he'd always wanted to see Filia in black leather….or handcuffs...

The Festival was an incredible success, in no small part to an anonymous parent nobly biting the proverbial bullet and playing the part of the school's mascot, cheering the three-legged-races, doing petty magic tricks for delighted children, and presenting a blushing Filia Ul Copt with the school's appreciation award for her tireless efforts on the festival committee. The Unicorn was a smashing hit, although a few parents complained that the lap dance that accompanied his presentation of the award was hardly necessary and somewhat inappropriate for an elementary school audience. And scandal hit the Parent-Teacher Organization when it emerged that two mothers and one of the fathers had tried soliciting the Unicorn into indecent activities, but these events soon drifted away, like the streamers and popcorn and abandoned stands as the festival finished and families made their way home.

All the fuss went over Val's head as his mother tucked him into bed and kissed him goodnight. He sighed and drifted into dreams of a magic land where his mother laughed with unbridled delight, where unicorns pulled coins from behind his ears, where he could eat all the cotton candy he could stomach and win a three-legged-race and where all of his wishes came true.

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**AN: I feel really really sorry for subjecting Xellos to this, but I feel like Filia doesn't get enough victories in fic. Also, if you want to know what put the idea for the mascot into my head, simply google "unicorn costume" and prepare to be horrified.**


	2. Continuing Education

**Prompt #54- Continuing Education**

**Uh. Yeah. So the prompt kept making me think of sexual situations, but I wanted to write something different. So this one-shot is basically about Xellos and Filia attempting to fix plumbing. *(hides face in hands in shame)***

**This also got a lot longer than I was originally intending….**

**EDIT: So, I uploaded this in a hurry and there were a couple of hanging sentences and various other problems- I fixed the ones I could find, but if I missed some, just let me know...  
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Filia Ul Copt knew, academically, that grown women were supposed to be above throwing tantrums.

She knew that there were characteristics that made for educated, mature women, like providing endless, enthusiastic support for their (always well-behaved) children, maintaining their beautifully built and decorated homes, scrap-booking every carefully documented event in their colorful lives, being generous, adventurous lovers for their physically and morally perfect husbands, all the while exercising strenuously, never wandering to the pantry at three in the morning to pour cheesecake down their throats with a funnel.

Filia knew that was what grown women were supposed to strive for, but she took cold comfort in the notion that had any of those glamorous creatures been faced with a teething Dragon, an empty cupboard, a sink that refused to drain, a broken oven, too many bills and a Monster who was _always dropping in uninvited_, those elegant ladies would have done just what Filia was doing.

Which was screaming incoherently and throwing pots at her neighbor's garden wall. It was cathartic, she reasoned, and she had never liked her neighbor much anyway. She was sweaty and red, breath coming out in ragged gasps and she was sure at any moment she would burst into tears.

She wanted the best for her child, he _deserved_ it, but no one had told her that being a mother was so _hard, _especially with no one there to help her. She hadn't slept in a week and her eyes felt dry and grainy. Val was teething and he cried constantly, no matter what she did to soothe him. She hadn't been able to work, her kiln needed repairs and she was flat broke. She was tired, she was frustrated and she was lonely. Throwing pottery seemed very tame in comparison to her other ideas: buying a fifth of vodka and drinking to oblivion, jumping off a bridge, joining a circus, or crawling back to the dull monotony of a temple.

She felt like a mess. She'd tied her hair back instead of brushing it and there were deep creases below her eyes. The work dress she'd thrown on that morning was thread-bare and tattered, and she didn't think she could manage the energy to do laundry. She'd tried to fix her sink and managed only to soak herself, Val was still screaming and she was starving. What had she eaten for breakfast? A raw flank steak and four cups of coffee? That wouldn't last her much longer.

She lobbed a large ceramic vase with a blown out bottom in particular pique and missed the wall altogether, sending it rocketing into her neighbor's rose bushes where a hideous yowl and subsequent crashes indicated it had landed on a cat.

Well, the damn thing shouldn't have been hiding in the roses if it didn't want to get hit.

"Well, well," said a particularly annoying and altogether unwelcome voice uncomfortably close behind her. "I thought I was the master of terror and destruction, but it appears you've been gaining on me."

"Go away, Xellos," Filia snarled without turning, _why did he always stand so close?_

"I have enough on my plate today already!" It was a Herculean effort to keep her voice steady, and just having him there, on top of everything else, was too much, so she tore away from him like a bandage, so that he couldn't see the tears welling in her eyes. _I don't want him to see me like this, a small voice whispered in her mind, when I'm so raw and broken…_

_It's because you're afraid of him when you're already vulnerable, she told herself, it's easier for him to hurt you like this…._

_That was the reason…wasn't it?_

"I think if you break any more pottery, you won't have any plates left," Xellos commented mildly, "You know, if you weren't so self absorbed, you might have thought of asking for help!" He waggled his finger at her in a particularly infuriated way.

"I'm not self-absorbed!" Filia started to scream, but his words began to sink in and she raised an eyebrow skeptically, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "Are you actually offering to _help_ me?" she asked, disbelief tainting every word.

"I'm bored," Xellos offered with a shrug, "And I'm sure it will prove to be…educational."

"Huh," said Filia, staring at him. Every fiber of her being was telling her to turn him down, that this was some sort of elaborate trap, but she couldn't deny that she needed help, and somehow just having a familiar face around was calming. As the old adage advised, the devil you know….

_And surely having him around was the best way of keeping an eye on him…_

_Not that she wanted him around, or anything._

_It was just…practical._

"Well," she choked out finally, "I guess you can try and help me fix the sink…"

She looked him up and down, "Although I think you might need to change your clothes. A cloak and gloves aren't really the proper attire for home improvement."

* * *

Val was screaming again as they entered the small cottage, flinging toys unconcernedly from his bassinet with the fury of a very small, green tornado. Filia ran over to him and picked him up, and then winced as he began slapping petulantly at her face.

"He's teething," she said over her shoulder to Xellos, trying to hold back the tiny hands, "And he's getting so strong it's hard to hold him when he's angry,"

Xellos pondered the small child as he divested himself of cloak and gloves, setting them on the kitchen table, "He always was a little too strong and sensitive for his own good…Will he_….damage_ himself if he keeps on like that?

Filia, staggering from a new onslaught, shook her head, "His doctor says to just let him tire himself out, and that he'll cry himself to sleep eventually…But it's been a week already and it hasn't gotten any better."

Xellos stared at her. "He's been doing this for a _week_?"

Filia nodded, numbly.

Xellos ran a hand through his hair and shook his head,

"Well, I guess the least I can do is help you with that sink."

"Do you know _anything_ about plumbing?"

"Filia, _please_. I'm sure I can figure it out."

Filia looked him up and down, then nodded slowly.

"I'll get the toolbox."

* * *

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Filia asked worriedly, glancing nervously at the large pipes above the sink that Xellos was busily un-threading.

"How hard can it be, if humans designed it?" responded Xellos cheerfully, seconds before the pipe exploded under his wrench and he was knocked off his feet by a torrential stream of tepid water. Filia yelped and jumped back as his head sliced through the cascade like a breaching whale, his violet hair clinging wetly to his face and his eyes slits against the pressure.

"Wow!" he sputtered and coughed weakly as another pipe broke loose and a gasket flew across the room, shattering a window. Filia bravely rushed in to try and stem the flow with her hands and only succeeded in sending water shooting to corner of the kitchen that had somehow escaped damage. Xellos, still managing, despite the rushing water covering his face, to look disgustingly chipper, called out "I guess we should have called a plumber!"

"It's too late for that now!" Filia shouted angrily above the roar of water, and beat a wrench violently against the broken pipe like a battle-ax, as if she thought that it might change its mind if she abused it enough, "You'd better fix this _NOW_ or I am going to _kill_ you!"

* * *

Two hours later, the standing water in the kitchen was up to their knees and rising. Filia was groping blindly on the floor, trying to locate her toolbox while Xellos tried to shove the errant pipes back into place. Val's bassinet was floating serenely on the small waves, and Val himself was making small, chirping hiccups between sobs and trying to paddle toward Filia with his hands.

"I think I've found it!" she shouted triumphantly, as her fingers grazed something long and solid. She pried her fingers under it and yanked, only to have Xellos, several wrenches, and his armful of pipes rain down on her like torpedoes. One grazed her shoulder and bounced off with a bruising clang and another sailed through another of her windows with a deafening crash. She watched, helpless in horror, as Xellos' arms spun like windmills and he made a slow, face-first fall right into her lap.

Filia, backed up against the now broken wall, legs splayed in front of her, froze. Xellos, face buried snugly between her breasts, froze. For an instant, it seemed as if time itself was holding its breath.

_He's warm, _she realized, surprised and a little ashamed_, I always thought he would be cold, but he's warm…_

Xellos lifted himself up onto his hands, and Filia was desperately, terribly aware of how close their faces were, how his parted, panting, wet lips were only inches away from her own. She suddenly noticed how closely her wet dress was clinging to the curves of her body and she blushed a deep, mortified crimson. Xellos was regarding her strangely, wide-eyed, as if he had forgotten something terribly important and was just now remembering it.

_How could his eyes be so vivid, like a thousand universes lay behind them?_

After a long, heavy moment, he broke the silence.

"Filia," he choked out, his voice heavy with emotion, "That wasn't the toolbox. That was my foot."

* * *

Filia stepped back and considered the jumbled tangle of pipes critically. It was almost like solving a string game! If she twisted that pipe there, and nudged that one there…

"Look!" she called to Xellos, awash with excitement. He looked up wearily from where he was attempting to bail some of the water out of a broken window, "Look, we can fix this if we just reroute the broken water main into three sections and divert them to pipes in the different sides of the house! The water will be on again, and we can completely avoid the broken pipes above the sink!"

She pouted consideringly, and continued a little more slowly, "I think I can figure it out if…Oh! But I don't know how I'm going to weld the pipes together! I don't have any fire or flames or anything!" She looked as if she might burst into tears.

Xellos stared at her blankly. "Filia," he said finally, "you _are_ a _DRAGON!_"

Laser Breath proved incredibly efficient at welding the pipe joints, and Filia had quickly built a complex web of copper re-routing all of the household water flow away from the broken section and, in the process, had located a blocked u-joint as the problem with her sink. She bent and welded pipes, hammered the bracings back to the wall and couldn't help the first small threads of a smile from pulling at her lips.

Gaining control over something even as simple as a copper pipe seemed to lift her mood, and she was even humming softly under her breath.

Xellos was impressed in spite of himself. It was easy to forget that below that pretty, feminine surface several tons of muscle, piss and vinegar lay just waiting to burst out.

He continued to bail as much water as he could manage, and slowly, steadily, the floor became visible again. As he mopped up the last of the puddles, he looked back towards the suddenly quiet bassinet.

Val had ceased crying and had finally fallen asleep, sucking peacefully on a tiny thumb.

* * *

It was deep into dusk when, with a final, desperate twist, Filia wrenched the last two pipes together and held them with shaking arms while she breathed just enough heat onto the seam to fuse them together. She relaxed her grip tentatively, as if certain that when she let go, the whole awkwardly welded circuit would come crashing down on her head. They didn't. The pipes held fast.

"This," Xellos said as he put the final wrench on the u- joint and slid out from under the sink below her, "calls for a celebration!"

"A celebration?" asked Filia dumbly, "We've flooded the house, broken three of my windows, busted a wall AND nearly killed ourselves!"

"No less than I expected."

Filia looked at him for a long, pregnant moment. His hair was beginning to dry in wisps around his face, and his wet shirt clung intriguingly to his long, slender body. It was easy to meet those violet eyes, much, much harder to look away.

"It's not like you to volunteer for anything that doesn't hold some benefit to you," she said finally, "You stuck around because you knew how angry and frustrated I'd get trying to fix this, didn't you?"

He shrugged, "It wasn't the only reason, but I can't say it wasn't one of them. I couldn't resist. You're delicious when you're angry," He smiled suddenly, a self-deprecating smile with tinges of bitterness at the corners, "That doesn't bother you, does it?"

Filia was startled by the realization that it didn't.

"Besides," said Xellos with a wink, "We had a lot of fun."

"You're right," she laughed, "I guess we did."

* * *

It was dark, the kitchen was a mess, they were wet, dirty and exhausted, but, Filia thought as they sipped wine sitting on the damp floor of the kitchen, she felt better than she had in ages. She felt refreshed and hopeful, not so...so _lonely_.

Xellos caught her gazing at him and gave her a quirky grin.

Filia blushed a little, but charged bravely in, "So, Xellos," she said, stretching out her long, muscular legs on the tile floor and wiggling her bare toes experimentally, "Did today prove 'educational' enough for you?"

"Oh yes," he replied, chuckling a little, "I learned never again to explore the machinations of human engineering, that your local mercantile stocks a very decent Merlot, and, that although they are somewhat useless with international affairs, a dragon's brute strength does have its domestic applications. What about you, Filia, dear? Did today meet your high expectations?"

Filia peered down into her wine glass thoughtfully, slowly swirling the dark liquid.

"I learned," she said carefully, "That Mazoku are much better at world domination than they are at plumbing…" Xellos snorted softly, but Filia continued, somewhat defiantly, "I learned that, well… maybe you aren't such a pain _all_ of the time. I even… I had a nice time today."

"As did I. We should do it again."

"I think the floorboards will need to be replaced."

"Are you sure you trust me with a hammer?"

"I'll do the hammering. You can hold the nails."

"You'll hit my fingers on purpose!"

"You'll have to learn to dodge, then."

"Then here's a toast: To my continuing education!" Xellos smiled as he raised his glass. Filia clinked hers gently against it and smiled back.

"And to mine."

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_AN: _

_1.I read a romance novel that had a list like the opening about accomplished women, and I used that as inspiration._

_2.I like the idea of Filia having a semi-raw, highly carnivorous diet. She is a dragon, after all._

_3.I think Filia would be pretty handy, given the chance. Between pottery, cat's cradle and building barbed wire fences around Xellos, she seems pretty good with her hands._

_ 4. the lines "To my further education!" "And to mine!" are from a BBC America show that I can't for the life of me remember- anyone know?_

_5.I'm not sure about the breaks in the story...Does it work? Is there a more elegant way to do that? Advice, please!_

_Thank you!_


	3. Guest Room

**Prompt #99 : Guest Room**

**AN: I think Zelas would be the scariest mother-in-law EVER.**

**This one is a little out-there, and possibly a little OOC, but hopefully not too much so….**

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Zelas Metallium made it a general rule to remove herself from the personal affairs of her underlings, so long as they continued to perform admirably. If a few of her wolves were engaged in a passionate polyamorous love quadrangle, who was she to interfere? If her Priest and General wanted to spend his free time slumming it with a couple of renegade dragons and waste his precious vacations fixing plumbing and painting bathrooms, surely that was his own (clearly insane) decision.

She had been amused at first, the way he had pursued, and then been ensnared by, that little dragon girl. It was always gratifying to see him get taken down a notch, especially when she didn't have to expend the effort to do it herself.

She was taken aback, however, when Xellos appeared before her to ask permission to make his pet dragons' home his permanent residence between missions. He posited that such an arrangement would leave him more refreshed and better able to complete her orders to the best of his ability. He claimed that these interludes gave him even more of a reason to fight, whetted his taste for battle. Besides, he pointed out, all his things were already there.

The request…stunned her.

She felt a more than a little hurt.

She was his mother! His creator! The leader of his pack! Why would he want to leave Wolfpack Island and her constant (if occasionally…well, _often_… inebriated) care? So she sometimes sent him on senseless goose chases for her own amusement. So she sometimes devised special traps and tortures for him. But it was all in good fun!

Besides, this whole domestic side of Xellos was vaguely unsettling. He was acting like he was _married_ or something.

Shit, he wouldn't have actually done something that stupid….would he?

It would have been just like him to slip that in with one of his boring reports while she swirled wine and only listened with half an ear.

"…_.The human baby-eating cult is suffering losses from a local band of dragons who are repulsed by the practice on the grounds that the bodies of a sentient non-dragon, including, but not limited to, human, beastman, fish person, sand person, mazoku, etc, are considered unclean for corporeal merging with, or, in this case, consumption, by those entities prescribed by draconian writ to be holy, and, therefore, this cult, being composed primarily of those worshiping, or claiming to worship, deity and/or deities connected with the Fire Dragon King__**,**__ is facing extermination. I'm getting married on Tuesday, and the dissertation on morning glories is on your desk. The last reports of Lord Dynast's campaign against the yeti holdouts in the north faced another delay yesterday due to the lack of appropriate footwear…."_

She wracked her brain for anything he had said in the past few months that should have sent up alarm bells, but couldn't think of any. So he was safe. Probably.

It was all that damned dragon girl's fault! She had taken something perfect and replete in evilness and twisted it for her own selfish use! She was corrupting him! Or un-corrupting him! Or something!

Whatever it was, Zelas didn't like it.

Why would he want to shack up with a dragon anyway? Just because you were technically_ allowed _to do something, didn't mean you _did_. Especially when it came to dragons. Hadn't he realized how annoyingly self-righteous they were? Or how awful they smelled after you disemboweled them?

And for that matter, what kind of ulterior motives could the dragon have for inviting him? She must have some darker purpose in allowing Xellos, who had personally massacred half of her race, access to her body and home. Was she using him as a barrier, a protective shield against other dragons and Mazoku? Was she weakening him with affection so that she could at last exact revenge?

Zelas stamped out her cigarette and heaved herself up onto her towering stilettos. It was time she and this…_ Filia _had a conversation.

* * *

Appearing in a cloud of purple smoke (and a few tasteful sparks) at Filia's garden gate, Zelas was surprised in spite of herself. She had expected a temptress, a thin, ethereal creature with a consciously cultivated shell of innocence and fragility covering a rotten, scheming center. She'd expected a small, perfectly groomed and postured waif, waiting in a room full of flowing gauze, batting her sparkling, childlike eyes and wringing her perfectly manicured hands.

What she found was an unnaturally tall, tidy young woman with a muscular, curvy body and a grubby, green-haired child playing in a somewhat pitiful-looking flowerbed. The young woman was flushed and laughing, her long hands resting gently on the child's waist to support him as he leaned forward to violently bludgeon a small plant into the ground with a wicked-looking toy shovel.

When the woman looked up sharply, Zelas saw a flash of what her son found so endlessly fascinating; a deep, raging passion held in check by desperate, thin self-control.

The kind of passion that would prove explosive when it was unleashed.

The kind of self-control that begged to be broken.

She was far, far more lovely and alluring than Zelas had expected, made all the more striking by her complete lack of affectation.

_Well, of course I would see how desirable he finds her, _Zelas thought, somewhat defensively_, after all, he and I are literally cut from the same cloth…_

It didn't make her like the girl any better.

* * *

Filia Ul Copt was not a woman easily cowed. Her substantial presence, size and strength made her difficult to intimidate physically, and her own staggering beauty and natural humility deflected the softer warfare of jealousy.

The small woman standing in front of her had her cowering. It wasn't the predatory smile on the deceptively sweet face or the long, claw-like nails grasping the stinking cigarette. It was the flash and power deep in her hypnotic eyes, eyes that were at once both so beloved and so unfamiliar to her.

She knew immediately who had come visiting.

She scooped up her child, nearly throwing him behind her, standing up and bracing her feet apart like a boxer in one, smooth motion. Zelas's eyes crossed slightly to take in the large iron mace that had been suddenly thrust in her face.

"Val, honey, go up to your room," Filia said, impressed that her voice only wavered slightly, although her body was wracked with trembling. Only when her son had run safely indoors did Filia drop her mace to her side and address the woman standing at her garden gate.

"Lord Beastmaster, I presume."

"Filia Ul Copt, I perceive," The voice was honeyed, but slightly rasping, and deeply, darkly dangerous.

"If you're here to hurt my son, you'll have to kill me first!"

"That would be easily done, but really too tedious to bother with. I'm not here about the Ancient, however. My business is with you." Filia, startled, started to answer, but found no words would cross her lips.

"I'm not going to hurt you, you silly girl," Zelas said with a dismissive wave of her slender, tanned wrist, "At least, not yet. Especially if you close your mouth and invite me in so we can…" Her smile was like the tightening of razor wire, "chat."

* * *

It was a surreal spectacle, the neat, modest former priestess in her spotless pink dress and pretty, delicate tea set pouring a drink for the flamboyant Mazoku Lord, a flinch set in the dragon's strong shoulders, like she was carefully de-fusing a bomb.

Given Filia's track record with explosives, her trepidation may have been deserved.

She sat nervously at the edge of her chair, her eyes downcast, delicately sipping her tea and crossing her ankles like a schoolgirl waiting for a teacher's ruler to fall across her palm.

"I'll ask you straight out," Zelas said finally, re-crossing her mile-long legs and fixing Filia with a penetrating glare, "Are your intentions towards my son honorable?"

A pale pink teacup went flying out of Filia's hands and hit the wall behind her, and tea shot out of her mouth and nose in catastrophic geysers of shock. She choked, gaping at Zelas with wide, watering eyes, and thumped herself several times on the chest with her fist before she could speak again.

"Me?" she coughed, staring blankly, "You're questioning _my_ intentions?"

Zelas shrugged her shoulders gracefully and lit a new cigarette, striking a match off her thigh and then dropping the stub in her teacup, "My son's welfare is of great concern to me. Naturally I take exception to a little nobody seducing him into a life of _virtue_."

"What?" screamed Filia, jumping up from the table and slamming her fists down on it with such force that the tea set rattled, "_HE_ seduced _ME! HE'S _the monster! If anything,_ I'M_ the victim here!" She jerked her thumb somewhat aggressively toward her chest.

"Just because you didn't realized you were doing it doesn't make you any less the seducer," Zelas commented mildly, blowing a ring of foul-smelling smoke into Filia's face and making her cough violently, "and I would be very interested in what your reasons were for entrapping him."

"I _didn't_ entrap him!" Filia protested again, "I can't even tell you _why_ I…why I …_love_ him! I don't _want_ to, it just _happened_!" She threw herself back down onto her seat and buried her hands in her face.

"Everyone is always accusing me of something!" she wailed, "I'm too violent, I'm too selfish! I'm held responsible for the sins of my race! No? Then I'm a traitor to my race! I'm guilty of unnatural associations, fraternizing with the enemy and congress with monsters! Now you're telling me I'm a treacherous seducer on top of it all? Anything else? Sure you don't want to pin a scarlet 'A' on my chest? I am _living in sin_, after all."

Zelas puffed on her cigarette and regarded Filia archly. The girl's terrified defiance was kind of…adorable. After several minutes, she pulled an ornate silver flask from somewhere under her insubstantial gown, took a swig herself and then offered it to the dragon.

"Your 'sins,' as you put it so quaintly, are probably your most redeeming features," Zelas said finally, "And although you do have a _ridiculously_ over-developed martyr complex, you aren't nearly as worthless and insipid as I thought you would be. Put some of that in your tea," she ordered, indicating the flask with her chin. Filia, wide-eyed, complied.

"What is it?" Filia, asked in a terrified whisper, "Poison? Dragonsbane?"

_Goodness,_ Zelas thought, _that girl had some eyes on her, especially when they were wide and bright with fear._

"It's whiskey," she said with a laugh, "It might help the hysteria."

* * *

The conversation had _not _proceeded well.

"So, when you met Xellos," Zelas sneered, "you hated him with your entire soul, so much so that you fell in love with him, slept with him, and now are inviting him to live in your home with your innocent young son while he feeds off of the anger and negativity that you produce when you are around him? Doesn't that strike you as a bit masochistic? Aren't you dragons supposed to be above that type of..._perversion_?"

"I don't have to explain my actions to you! You aren't one to talk, anyway!" Filia glared at the Greater Beast, "I mean, what kind of sadistic control freak would _you _have to be to make Xellos keep that ridiculous haircut?"

Zelas blinked, tipped her ash onto Filia's immaculate carpet, making her wince, and took another long drag on her cigarette.

"I don't _make_ him wear anything. I let him modify himself as he wishes."

There was an awkward silence.

"It really is a _terrible_ haircut," Zelas conceded finally, "I've been telling him that for centuries. He keeps claiming that it's aerodynamic or something."

Filis shook her head, suddenly sympathetic, "When he gets ideas into his head, it's impossible to get him to change his mind. He's almost as stubborn as Miss Lina."

Zelas looked thoughtful, "Xellos and Luna have often told me stories about the Little Inverse's pig-headedness. I always thought that they were over-exaggerating. It's interesting to hear it from a more…objective source."

Filia gave her a You-Don't-Know-The-Half-Of-It look, and leaned forward in her chair to balance her forearms against the edge of the table, "During the Darkstar campaign, when we had to deal with _both_ of them, I almost lost my mind. Why, this one time…."

* * *

Xellos entered the small cottage with some hesitation. He had been aghast that his Master had called him here, instead of to her chambers on Wolfpack Island. Her reasoning escaped him, and there was a tiny, wriggling fear in his chest that her visit might have very sinister implications. Zelas wouldn't have _killed_ Filia, then called him here, would she? No, he could feel Filia's bright, pulsing aura radiating from the parlor. But Zelas was there as well…what was she planning? Would she stand there, in his lover's home, and order him to kill Filia and Val himself? What would his response be? Could he refuse her? He steeled himself, and stepped through the door.

"…and then," Zelas was saying, waving her cigarette around dramatically, "When Dynast and I _finally_ checked the wine cellars, we found that Xellos had stuffed Sherra into one of the casks and just _left_ her in there! It took her weeks to get over the hangover, and even then, Dynast complained that she was hiccupping constantly for months afterward!"

Filia, holding Val on her lap, moved him slightly to the left to dodge Zelas's wildly waving cigarette, and clucked sadly and sympathetically, "That sounds _so_ hard to deal with. His antics can be _such_ a hassle."

Val gurgled, and Zelas reached out a long finger to poke his belly experimentally.

"He's very small," she commented finally. "He looks…easy to dent."

"He's actually quite sturdy," Filia replied proudly.

Xellos stared.

"Oh, how long have you been standing there, Xellos?" Zelas said, noticing him at last, "Filia and I were just having a little visit."

Xellos made a small noise deep in his throat. Filia gave him a very pointed We-Have-A-Guest-And-You-Better-Mind-Your-Manners look.

"Well," Zelas said, rising up in a stately, if slightly unsteady, motion, "I suppose that I should be getting back to my pack. Xellos, I will expect you _early_ tomorrow morning. We need to talk about how to schedule my upcoming missions if you are going to be living here." She pinched his cheek as she passed and continued down the hall.

"Oh, and Filia, darling," Zelas said, blowing a smoky kiss over her shoulder as she started out the front door, "If he ever drives you completely crazy, you are _always _welcome in my guest room."

* * *

_AN:_

_1. I'm noticing that I've developed a theme of talking about children as if they were objects. Since Mazoku don't have children per se, I'm going to stick with the idea that they don't really know what to do with them._

_2. I'm not sure that Zelas and Filia would actually get along, but I liked the idea enough that I tried to do it justice. Whether or not it's successful, I'm not sure of. I did it mostly because I wanted Zelas to question Filia's intentions. I like turning things on their heads._

_3. Xellos's hair is pretty ridiculous. I'm just saying._

_4. (gasps for air) I am getting very busy, so the next story will be a bit longer in coming. I think I will be tackling "Game" next…_

_Thank you so much for reading!_


	4. Unoriginal Sin

**-Prompt # 65- Unoriginal Sin**

**AN: Uh…I'm no good at writing anything remotely steamy. So, I'm sorry. Also, I wrote this in a bit of a rush.  
**

**Filia's hair suffers some abuse in this story. I have a real soft spot for Filia, and I feel like by the end of TRY she's a lot calmer and more honest with herself than she is at the beginning. I hope I can portray a slightly more mature Filia without making her out of character…**

**I started this trying to be silly and then it got…a little more serious than I intended. Hopefully it is still not **_**too**_** serious. **

**

* * *

**

Xellos Metallium was craving something sweet.

He'd had a particularly long and fulfilling week inciting civil war, and the blood was still singing through his veins and across his lips. There had so much to manipulate, to arrange, and he'd enjoyed every second of it. His most gratifying achievement had been setting the two royal brothers at each other's throats with a particularly inspired bit of mischief involving the elder brother's wife's negligee and a pet monkey. He laughed to himself, remembering, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Warfare was delicious, but if you didn't follow it up with something lighter, it was liable to cause heartburn. What he needed was dessert.

He knew just where to get it.

* * *

She didn't answer the door.

"Filia!" He called, walking from room to room of the disgustingly quaint little cottage, "There's a evil monster in your house! Don't you need to come throw him out?"

He walked into the kitchen and stopped short on his heels.

She was sitting at her round kitchen table holding a sheet of parchment with several impressive looking seals on it and staring gloomily into the dregs of her teacup. Every now and then she gave a piteous sigh and a single, shining tear would run down her smooth cheek. When he forced a cough to announce his presence, she turned, and he could see that her eyes and nose were pink and swollen.

He felt suddenly awkward. She was supposed to be already enraged, ready to throw punches and/or crockery, not sitting silently weeping in her immaculate kitchen…all alone. He couldn't imagine why, but he felt a heavy surge of guilt.

"Uh…" he began, but Filia cut him off.

"A letter from the council," she said, thrusting the single sheet at him, "I've been officially released from my duties as a priestess to the Fire Dragon King."

Xellos took the letter and read it quickly, noting with admiration the long list of synonyms that the council had come up with for "abomination."

"I've known this was coming," Filia started, a half-apologetic smile flickering across her face, "it just…well, it hit a lot harder than I thought it would." She blew her nose loudly and rather ungracefully on a tea towel.

"Dragons do like to keep things official," he pronounced sagely, turning the sheet over to inspect the primly printed return address.

"Stupid old men," Filia spat out, glaring off into space. Xellos cocked his head at her involuntarily. He was used to Filia's displays of annoyance, her fits of temper that were more melodrama than actual pique. Although he was wont to tease, he enjoyed them, provoked them. They both took pleasure in her anger.

It was startling when she was bitter.

"What you need to do," he suggested, setting the letter back down and pouring himself a cup of tea, "Is to rub it in their faces by doing something _very_ naughty. Revenge by sin, if you will."

Filia lifted an eyebrow and wiped her face on her pink tea towel, "What did you have in mind?"

Xellos gave her a suggestion that he thought might prove her point quiet nicely.

"Besides," he said with a salesman's ingratiating smile, "it would probably get rid of a lot of your tension, too!"

"Xellos," said Filia, in a strangled voice, "that is the most _unoriginal_ sin I could think of. Even if I were going to '_celebrate,'_" she emphasized the word with finger quotes, "the fact that I've just been banished by committing a sin _just_ for the hell of it," Here she glared at him, "…which I'm not even _considering_, by the way, I'd hope that I could come up with something _a little_ less cliché than that."

"Nonsense," he replied, cheerily, "I think that the most appropriate way to celebrate being defrocked is to, well, get de-frocked."

He dodged her punch, sweeping himself into the chair across from her with effortless grace.

"Well, you've got to do _something_," he continued, "Or they'll think that they've _won._ What would someone as pious as you consider an 'original' sin?'

Filia glared, then considered, started to take a sip of her cold tea, tasted, pulled a face like a child taking medicine, and set the teacup aside.

"I would consider an 'original' sin," she said slowly, "one that was done just for the sake of committing it, not for the sake of the goal, like sex or drunkenness or sloth…you know, things people do because they give in to their desires. That's why they're so common, and all they really say about a person is that they were too weak to fight against themselves. A truly original sin would be one that no one would think to commit unless they were hell-bent on breaking all the rules."

"Like what, for example? Unholy congress with barnyard animals?"

Filia choked and couldn't repress a giggle. "That was not precisely what I had in mind."

"Well, what exactly is forbidden to a dragon maidens?"

"What isn't?" she quipped, but began ticking off items on her fingers anyway.

"Fornication, alcohol, smoking, recreational intoxicants of any kind, impure thoughts, disobedience to elders or husbands, body disfigurement or modifications, indecency in manner or deportment, profanity, impure fraternizing, lack of modesty before the opposite sex, homosexuality, masturbation, fantasizing, braids, short hair, the color purple, frivolity and exceeding merriment. There are also bans on perfumes, face paints and non-conical headdresses. That's not even mentioning the food taboos."

"Alcohol is forbidden?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and glancing at the bottle of wine above her sink.

Filia flushed. "I always just sort of thought of that as more as a "guideline."

"That's quite a list. The color purple is forbidden?"

"Well, too much purple anyway. It's technically on the books. We're a very thorough race."

"Apparently. So," he took a sip of tea, "You could start swearing."

Taken aback, Filia just stared at him.

"It fits your rules," Xellos said calmly, "You wouldn't be giving in to the 'sins of the flesh' and it _is_ still technically forbidden."

"It's just…Well, I've never used profanity before."

"What, never!"

She shook her head, dumbly.

"So, go ahead," Xellos prompted, crossing one leg over the other. He widened his eyes in mock horror. "Shock me!"

She blushed and looked at her toes, bunching her dress in her lap.

"…._shit…_."

"What was that? I didn't quite hear you."

She looked up, glancing nervously around her. "Shit!" she said firmly.

"See? Was that so hard? Now that you've taken the first step, you can become a raging nymphomaniac or turn to a life of crime and _really_ show them!"

Filia told him quite expressively what he could do with _that _suggestion.

"Wow!" Xellos beamed at her, "You're getting _much_ better already! Although, I assure you that Zelas and I have never had _that _kind of relationship…"

Glaring, Filia reached out and took a cookie.

"I don't really want to _sin_, per se," she said, nibbling, "but it would be nice to do something to make a clean break. A symbol, you know, of a new stage of my life."

Xellos blinked. "That sounds…really _stupid_. What are you going to do, get a tattoo of a dragon breaking through chains or ripping through a flag? Maybe with some tasteful flames?"

Filia threw a punch and only managed to spill tea on herself.

"I think," she said, as she dabbed decorously at her now wet gown, "that I would like to cut my hair."

Xellos found that his throat was tightening alarmingly, "Cut your hair? Wouldn't you rather just try braiding it?" He glanced around, "You could just borrow some of my clothes for awhile if wearing too much purple is forbidden! You don't have to do anything quiet that drastic!"

"Weren't you just suggesting I loose my virginity? Isn't that a bit more drastic than cutting my hair?"

"Nonsense. Haircuts are very a serious matter."

"Oh, I can see that you take yours _very_ seriously," Filia tittered, and stood up to find some scissors.

* * *

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, glanced at where Xellos was standing in the doorway and took a deep, frightened breath.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Xellos, frowning. _Why would she want to cut hair that was so….well,….perfect?_

She nodded firmly, lifted the scissor and cut.

_Snick._

_Snick._

She hacked haphazardly and watched the pile of gold build up around her feet. She felt dizzy and euphoric, and fueled her delight by hacking more. She'd cut off more than a foot when she finally set down the scissors, and the golden tresses now softly covered her shoulders in shining waves to her armpits. She swung her head back and forth, delighting in the freedom of movement, running her fingers through it and tugging playfully.

She felt infinitely better, more free, as if she had cut off the years she'd spent at the temple along with her hair.

"Well?" she said, turning and shaking her head like a wet puppy, "What do you think?"

Xellos reached out a hand to touch the silky strands, brushed the inexpertly clipped ends with gentle fingers then grasped them, cupping her head in his hands. She froze at his touch, eyes wide, like a startled animal. Her lips parted, a tiny pink tongue slipped out to wet them. His eyes narrowed, his jaw set.

"Will this take long to grow back out?"

She shook her head, cleared her throat, and tried to neither panic nor nuzzle at the thumbs that were lightly stroking her cheeks, "It grew back pretty fast the last time I singed it off."

"You singed it off?"

"An ambassador from the Beastmen came to the temple once and smacked my butt when I walked by with a pot of incense. I tried to hit him, spun around too fast and dropped the incense on myself …" she shook her head sadly at the memory, "It only burned off the right half, so I was completely lopsided. I couldn't even cut the other side to match, since short hair is forbidden. No one was smacking my butt for quite some time after that…"

He chuckled deep in his throat and then, as she watched, the amusement in his eyes grew darker into a much more dangerous emotion.

"Filia," he whispered, and then his mouth was clamped on hers like a vice, his fingers knotted in her hair and fisted at the back of her dress. She found herself tangling her arms around his neck, her legs buckling as he hitched her up onto the sink. She found her knees spreading to allow him to press against her, as if they had taken on volition their own. His hand was hard on her breast, his body lean and strong on hers.

"_This isn't the right way…"_ a small voice whispered in the corners of her mind.

Her mind felt sluggish and heavy, every thought felt as though it were being pulled out of mud. Her body was blisteringly hot, desperate and all too eager to take command. Her tongue had somehow found its way into Xellos's mouth, _he tasted vaguely like peppermint,_ and one of his cool, strong hands was making a steady ascent up her inner thigh and fidgeting with her garters. Her toes curled against her stockinged feet and she moaned into his mouth.

"_Not like this…" _the voice whispered.

Her brain was pounding in her skull, and she was sure at any second her heart would burst from her chest.

"Wait," she managed in a husky whisper, "wait…"

He pulled his lips away from where they had been grazing her neck, and she pressed him back with one trembling hand. Her head dropped to her heaving chest and she spent several moments gaining back her panting breaths. Her lungs felt shriveled, tiny.

"Lie with me," he said, his voice choked and hungry, "If there was ever a time to set aside your _foolish_ notions of virtue…"

She put her fingers to his mouth and reached out to grasp the folds of his cloak and pull him back to her.

"If I were to lie with you…or anyone…._theoretically_…," she said finally, forehead pressed against his chest and breath coming in ragged gasps, "I would hope I would do it because I wanted to …not out of…not out of spite. I can live with being a sinner and a disgrace to my people."

She looked up and met his eyes, ran a hand across his face.

"I just can't live with being a disgrace to myself."

The hand on her waist gripped a little tighter, hurting her. She gasped.

"And you think," he said bitterly, narrowing his eyes, "that lying with me, raw garbage, would be the ultimate disgrace. I understand." He shifted his gaze to her feet, his hair hanging over his eyes.

"I don't think you do," said Filia firmly, blushing, if possible, to an even deeper maroon. Xellos looked up at her sharply. She met his gaze and her voice faltered, but she couldn't manage to look away. _She was going to say this right if it _killed_ her…_

"I don't think lying with you would be a disgrace." she managed to choke out, "I just don't want to make it into a disgrace by doing it at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. When I lie with you, I want it to be about you and me, with no councils or sin or vengeance making it complicated."

He tore away from her and ran a frustrated and unsteady hand through his hair. "Damn it, Filia" he managed finally, almost pleading. Then again, more softly, "Damn it."

He turned at the bathroom door and fixed her with a steely, penetrating glance. His pupils were dilated, his eyes pools of black. She knew now, she thought, what the mouse must feel in the stare of the snake.

"I'll be back," he whispered, and vanished.

* * *

Xellos paced the corridors of Wolfpack Island and played the afternoon back in his mind for the thousandth time. She'd been so warm, so willing. She hadn't refused him, exactly, she'd just…delayed.

'_When I lie with you'_, she'd said, '_When,_' not '_If_'…

He smiled to himself and whistled softly as he made his way down the halls towards his chambers.

He had always counted patience among his few virtues. He had waited years for her. He could wait a bit longer.

'_When_' would do for now.

* * *

_AN:_

_Wah! I feel like a tease! :(_

_1. I just think that getting defrocked sounds dirty ._

_2. I think you can guess what Filia called Xellos…_

_3. Haircuts are a guaranteed way to make you feel better after a breakup or, incidentally, after being banished by your race for fraternizing with the enemy._

_4. I have long hair, and I definitely once burned off half of it. Power outage + pigtails + candles = catastrophe. It burned all the way to my ears. It was utterly tragic. :(_

_5. I have no idea how to write sexy things. The ending to this was probably the most difficulty I've had writing yet._

_Thanks for reading!_


	5. Not Human

**Prompt # 56 Not Human**

**AN: A X/F, L/G and L/X-friendship fic**

It was so easy to forget that they weren't human, Lina thought as she watched them walk side-by-side, bickering incessantly, a little ahead of her on the path. She and Gourry had been traveling south and stopped by Filia's shop for a brief visit on the way home from a trip researching a particularly ill-documented and arcane fire-breathing spell. After a week with the visitors, Filia had decided that her cupboard and furniture needed a break, and that Val was old enough to hazard a trip to Sairune to meet the newly crowned Queen Amelia and her Prince Consort. Xellos had appeared to tag along shortly thereafter, complaining loudly that no one had been home when he had gone to pester Filia, to which Filia peevishly replied that she wasn't his pet, and if he wanted to be _invited_ to anything, then maybe he shouldn't always pop in where he wasn't wanted. Xellos responded that she should be honored by his visits, that she should be glad _anyone_ came to see her, and that she was displaying Predictably Melodramatic Dragon Disorder.

Filia, eloquent as ever, punched him.

It was strange to see such familiar patterns after so much time. Familiar, but now somehow tempered with time, the bitterness and hatred gone out of the old jibes and insults, leaving only playful habit.

It was so easy to forget that they weren't human, and yet…

If one observed closely, Xellos's feet didn't always walk precisely on the earth. Now, for instance, as he warmed to an argument and leaned forward to poke a gloved finger into Filia's scowling face, his shoes hovered an inch off the ground, giving him an extra inch above their usually equal height so that he could look down his nose at her. The ragged edge of the path that would have tripped any normal, distracted traveler was left untouched under his serenely floating footsteps. Gourry, a few steps behind, promptly fell on his face.

And if watched with a critical eye, Filia's hair shone too brightly for any mortal, and her steps dug into the ground with a solidity and power that belied her ethereal appearance. If she was particularly careless or tired, one might come across an occasional footprint that was not, as one expected, of a small-toed young woman, but of a several ton, cold-blooded beast. She had discarded her headdress and robe along with her rank, and now strode along in a practical white gown and cloak, with her son strapped to her back in a sling that he was desperately and unsuccessfully trying to wriggle out of. She seemed even taller and more solid than Lina remembered, much taller and stronger than any human woman could ever be.

The contrast was jarring. Xellos seemed to flit like ether, one moment here, one moment there, insubstantial as sunlight and twice as blinding. In opposition, Filia's physical presence overshadowed her human form. She seemed to glow, to take up even more room than even her tall, dense body demanded. Her voice, too, had a resonance that seemed borrowed from a deeper tone than her ringing soprano. Her soprano was definitely ringing now.

"No!" Filia was declaring stridently, "I refuse to accept that!"

"Even someone as pig-headed as you has to admit it at some point," Xellos was cajoling, as if he were reminding a recalcitrant child that last time they ate all the cookies they got a stomachache.

"No," said Filia with finality, "You were wrong and that is that!"

"What," asked Lina in exhaustion, "Are you two on about now?"

Xellos rotated to face her, eyes closed, but twitching mouth clearly showing the waning edges of patience.

"This…_reptile_," he bit out, "is trying to imply that it was inappropriate for me to use all of her good gin in Jello shots. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?"

Lina tripped on her boots and barely retained her balance.

"You two are having an argument….about_…Jello shots_?"

"_Strawberry-kiwi_ Jello shots!" Filia snarled, as if the flavor were nails in a coffin, "Besides, what were you doing in my _drawers_?"

Xellos choked, tripped, and gave Filia a pointed, sidelong look.

"For that matter, why are you _here_?" asked Lina, suspiciously, "Are you on some kind of errand for Zelas? I don't want to get involved in any of her _errands_!"

Xellos shrugged, "Zelas is attending a council of war with Dolphin and Lord Dynast, so she released me from any other duties for the rest of the week."

"A council of war?" asked Gourry, wide-eyed, "Wow! That must be some meeting!"

"Probably in some dank, dripping cave," Filia sneered, "Cowering like dogs chewing on bones."

Xellos twitched so violently that his violet hair was sent swinging like a pendulum.

"Actually," he said, in a voice full of pique barely restrained by primness, "The council is taking place on an island resort far to the south."

Lina pondered this, tugging at her mop of red hair, "Are they trying to be discrete? That seems like an odd location."

"Well," said Xellos, confidingly "I think it was mostly because they wanted to spend some time on the beach."

Lina tried to wrap her mind around this statement with limited success. While it was difficult to imagine Dynast wearing tropical print shirts and leis, it was disturbingly easy to picture Zelas in a leopard-print bikini, downing martinis and leering at cabana boys.

Filia pouted dramatically, "I wish _I _got to go on vacations!"

Lina, perhaps wisely, did not make the obvious comment about pigs and theme parks.

* * *

Lina woke in the devastating discomfort of the unfamiliar place. She lay on her back for a thousand sighing breaths, willing herself back to sleep, but for every yawn there was an equally insistent itch, a tingling limb, and the constant ache of midnight hunger, despite the mountains of dinner she had consumed only hours before. She rolled onto her side to try and dislodge a rock that had somehow worked itself into her sternum.

She froze when she realized that she was not the only one awake.

Xellos sat a little away from the campfire's glow, the red sparks reflecting in his shadowed eyes. His legs were drawn up, knees a little apart, and his back slumped against the trunk of a tree. The laziness of his posture and his dark, hooded eyes belied the intensity of his stare.

Lina sat up a little, and followed his gaze to where Filia slept curled up on her side, with Val tucked in tightly beside her. Her golden hair was tangled around her face and reflected softly in the fire. She was snoring softly and was drooling onto her pillow and Val's tiny hands were knotted in her hair and he was gnawing on a strand in his sleep. He shifted, mewed quietly and Filia, without waking, gathered him closer to her body. He nuzzled against her breast and relaxed again into peaceful dreams.

Xellos, silent and sleepless, watched them with eyes half predatory and half protective. His jaw twitched occasionally, but his gaze was unblinking and unwavering. Lina, in a half-waking moment of intuition, suddenly realized that he must love her.

It hit her like a sucker punch in the gut, a bandage tearing away and revealing the crack in The Way Things Were.

Sometimes The Way Things Were was all you had to hang onto when the world crumbled to dust around you. No matter the chaos, no matter the bizarre situation, knowing The Way Things Were helped you scramble back onto your feet and square off against whatever terror threatened you.

Xellos watching Filia sleep with that half-bitter, half-desperate stare did not jive with The Way Things Were.

Xellos, perhaps roused by the sudden flood of embarrassment and shock undulating from her bedroll, turned his head, hawk-like, to regard her.

It was so easy to forget he wasn't human….

Except for times like these, when he seemed so cold and alien and dangerous that you kicked yourself for ever believing the falsetto and the mask of foppery.

Lina wanted nothing more than to tunnel back into her bedroll, to pull the top closed around her head and huddle there until morning, pretending that she hadn't just interrupted a moment of terrible longing and wrenching emotion.

But one thing Lina Inverse could never be accused of was cowardice, so she set her jaw, sat up in her bed, stretched, and fixed Xellos with a piercing stare of her own.

"So, Xel," she said, with a yawn for effect, "You fell for the dragon girl. Who would have thunk it?"

Xellos just looked at her.

"Aw, come on, Xel, it's written all over your face!"

A flash of grief, of bitterness and a deep and profound self-hatred swam across his features, but it was gone before Lina could have truly focused on any one emotion.

"It's not something I can ever speak of," he said finally, "It is the ultimate foolishness, and something that I should be strong enough to fight. It's not as though she could ever love me in return."

"You can't know that!" Lina started to protest, but was silenced by one sardonic glare.

Even Xellos couldn't change The Way Things Were.

_Except…._

_Except…_

_There was the way Filia blushed when he teased her, the way she refused to retreat when he came too close…_

"I know it seems hopeless," Lina said at last, "but I wouldn't give up so easily. Give her a chance to be as, well, as _perverse_ in her affections as you are."

"You should take your own advice," Xellos replied, looking past her to where Gourry lay tumbled and snaked around his bedroll, "As much as it might hurt me to admit, I would like to see you happy."

A very long and pregnant silence stretched between them.

"You do realize," said Lina slowly, fixing Xellos with an amber gaze, "That someday one of us is going to have to kill the other, don't you?"

Xellos smiled warmly at her, "Oh, yes."

"So why are you pretending to be my friend?"

Xellos looked at her with both eyes open wide, a slight smile lingering on his face.

"I'm not pretending. I do consider you my friend. You are just a friend that I may one day kill or be killed by."

"That seems like kind of a sick mentality."

"Do you think that we should give up on a friendship that is valuable to both of us just because we may sometimes be enemies?"

Xellos shifted his gaze across the fire, to where Filia and Val lay.

"Once," he said softly, as much to himself as to her, "Once you might have had the upper hand. Once you might have been fated to kill me. But I think now I may emerge victorious. Because I have something I want, and something I would die for."

His eyes flickered slowly towards Gourry, and then bored into Lina once again.

"Then again, maybe you do too."

* * *

The morning rose, and a brisk formality covering his usual effusive mischief was all the proof Lina could find of Xellos's midnight openness.

The path continued, and, as if by choreographed dance, Lina found herself walking shoulder to hip with Gourry, while Filia and Xellos bickered a few paces ahead.

Filia was the prophet, but it was Lina who could see what was coming, with the inexorable force of a hurricane.

Every gesture, every move between them were like fingers reaching out to one another.

It would only be a matter of time before they came colliding together.

It would not be the kind of love that a human heart could contain. It would be too wild, too hot and too cold, too bestial and primal.

It would be the kind of passion she had always longed for and to see it played out by two such beautiful, inhuman creatures made her heart ring hollow and empty.

Then Gourry looked down at her and grinned, a simple, easy, affectionate smile and she felt her heart curl back inside her chest.

Perhaps there was something to be said for being human after all.


	6. Totally Smashed

**Prompt #75 -Totally Smashed**

**My last couple of entries have been a little **_**too**_** serious, so I'm upping the silly quotient! **

**This entry takes place in the same story-verse as "Guest Room" and this entry made me think too much of Zelas not to include her in the fun. If the idea of Zelas attending Val's b-day party makes absolutely no sense to you, you might want to read "Guest Room" first.  
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* * *

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The party celebrating young Val's first year was in full swing, and though the subject of the celebration was basking in the adoration and attention of his mother's friends and, well, some other people his mother knew, the hostess herself was having a subdued yet desperate panic attack.

"I didn't expect any of them to _come_!" hissed Filia to her lover and partner in the privacy of their sunny, immaculate kitchen. She was wringing the front of her pretty pink party dress compulsively and the festive apron around her waist was damp from where she had wiped her hands. She had scrubbed the small cottage within an inch of its life, but it's cheerful sparkle did nothing to mitigate the sense of doom she felt building around her with the slow inexorability of a thunderstorm.

"Then why did you invite them?" Xellos asked lazily, chewing nonchalantly on an apple and glancing around the corner to watch the small gathering begin its slow decent into chaos. His long, lean body was propped against the oven, and he regarded his half-eaten apple as though it were an article demanding far more attention than his lover's hyperventilating breaths and growing anxiety.

"Lina asked, and I wanted to be polite! And why is your mother here? I didn't even invite _her_!"

"She said she assumed her invitation got lost."

"Well, I don't have to feed _her_, but if I'd known she was coming I would have restocked the liquor cabinet!"

Xellos looked around the corner into the living room and shifted, cat-like, to lean against the doorframe.

"At least she found an ashtray and isn't dumping her cigarette butts on the floor again."

Filia came to stand beside him in the doorway, pulled her hair into agonized fists and muffled the nascent scream that threatened to burst from her lips.

"That's an antique fingerbowl from the early Talrack Dynasty, not an ashtray! Does she have any idea how priceless that is?"

"Probably."

In the living room, at that moment, Val sat balanced in Gourry Gabriev's enormous lap, being ticked and cooed at by the Crown Princess of Sairune. Amelia was attempting to play peek-a-boo with him, but Val was having none of it, and kept slapping her hands away officiously. Gourry, gazing down at the boy with something like empathy shining in his kind blue eyes, bounced him a couple of times in the air and tickled his sides. Val giggled and gazed up at the blonde swordsman adoringly.

At the side table, The Greater Beast and Lina Inverse were involved in a terribly complex and arcane discussion of the role of alcohol supply in the subversion of mutiny. They had come to a consensus on the need for alcohol to bolster morale among minions, and had moved on to debating quantity and quality. Zelgadis was adding occasional comments from his experience with alcohol, mutiny and minions, all the while blushing furiously and trying desperately to keep his eyes from wandering to Zelas's long, brown curves, frankly visible through her tiny, diaphanous gown.

Filia, gazing at them, felt a fresh wave of panic wash over her.

"How," she managed feebly, "am I going to _feed_ them?"

Xellos finished eating the core of his apple, dusted off his hands and leaned forward to peck her on the cheek.

"Come on," he said, his eyes suspiciously bright, "I'm sure this will be an _amazing_ party!"

"Why," replied Filia, in the voice of the condemned being led to the gallows, "do I find that not the _least _bit comforting."

* * *

The cake was a four-tiered chocolate and strawberry monstrosity, but Filia thanked her lucky stars that she'd been able to work an enlargement spell on the small, elegant cake she'd made initially. The tiers wobbled ominously on the way into the dining room, but with some on-the-fly calibration, Filia managed to keep it more or less intact. She personally thought it looked a bit pathetic, those tall, high tiers with a single, lonely candle winking weakly on top, but neither her son, nor her guests seemed to notice. While Amelia helpfully passed out napkins and spoons, and Zelgadis poured himself another cup of coffee, Lina and Gourry began preemptively jockeying for the biggest slice. Filia sidestepped them, almost managed not to trip over her own feet, and hastily served the other partygoers before allowing Lina and Gourry to attack the rest of the cake.

"I guess this is as close as we'll ever come to eating 'Dragon Cuisine'" Gourry remarked, face smeared with chocolate, and then burst out laughing at his own joke.

"What do you mean, 'Dragon Cuisine?'" asked Filia curiously, trying, and failing to maneuver a bite of cake into Val's mouth.

Lina, Amelia and Xellos shifted uncomfortably in their seats, but Gourry readily jumped in to explain.

"This one time Lina found this restaurant that served a feast made out of dragon, but they tried to trick us, so me and Lina and Zelgadis and Amelia had to go hunt one, so we did, but it wasn't ready to eat in time, and they threw me into the lake and this old guy said Zelgadis looked like his wife. Xellos was there too." He nodded sagely and took another mouthful of cake, "But your cooking is also 'Dragon Cuisine', so I made a joke."

Filia stared at them in horror, "A dinner made out of dragon?"

Amelia looked guiltily at her now empty plate, "It was only a Lake Dragon," she hastily explained.

"You killed and tried to eat a _LAKE DRAGON_?" Filia screamed, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, "You _monsters_! Lake Dragons are a proud and beautiful species that harm no one!"

"That's not what fish people think," muttered Zelas, re-capping her hip flask, crossing her long brown legs, and blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

"Geez, Filia," Lina said, her mouth full of disapproval and cake, "It's not like we killed a sentient dragon!"

Filia glared at her. "Even if Lake Dragons aren't intelligent, they are still sentient! You wouldn't kill and eat a gorilla, would you?"

Lina blinked at her. "I probably would," she declared finally.

Filia buried her face in her apron in frustration. Amelia patted her on the head, which seemed, to Filia, to only add insult to injury.

* * *

After the cake had been more or less decimated and Filia had regained her composure, Amelia brought in a beautifully wrapped white and gold present. The shining paper was topped with a large gold bow and the paper itself was embossed with the Sairune family crest.

"Mister Zelgadis and I got Val this, and I hope he likes it," she said blushing prettily and handing the box to Val. Val destroyed the beautiful wrapping in a matter of seconds, and revealed an elegant set of wooden toys with small, sturdy wheels, each in the shape of a dragon of a different size and color. They were heavily made, but of gorgeous design and detail, and Val immediately began to push a large black one along the table with a series of zooming noises.

"Oh, he loves it!" Filia glowed, hugging them each in turn.

"Amelia picked it out," Zelgadis protested, blushing, but he looked very pleased nonetheless.

"Here!" Gourry intoned cheerfully, handing Val a long, thin package and beaming so happily that Xellos and Zelas both shuddered, "I made it myself!"

Enclosed was a small, blunted wooden sword with an astonishing degree of detail worked into the hilt and blade. It was the perfect size and shape for Val's chubby fist and he grasped the hilt enthusiastically.

"You made this yourself?" Filia asked, impressed, as the party gathered around to admire the present and Val stabbed violently at his cake.

"Sure did," nodded Gourry, chest swelling with pride, "I thought, 'What do kids like?' and then I thought, "Toy swords, of course!' and I carved it right up for him. I was about his age when I got my first sword." He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and scratched his chin, "It was bigger though, and made of steel. Pointier and sharper too."

Zelgadis looked at him dubiously.

"I suppose we're lucky to have you here at all."

Lina looked shame-facedly at the beautiful toys and muttered softly to Filia, "I didn't get him anything. I didn't really think of it."

"That's alright," said Filia, patting Lina's arm and smiling at her. "It's a gift to have you here with us. I miss seeing my friends."

Meeting Lina's sudden, blinding smile, Filia didn't even have to pretend it was true.

* * *

"Time for my present!" Xellos declared gleefully, producing a large, lumpy parcel out of thin and placing it in front of the squirming tot. Lina and Gourry both scooted their chairs away surreptitiously, and Filia's warm smile became somehow more fixed, brittle and toothy.

As Val tore through the metallic purple wrapping with greedy fingers, her eyes got wider and wider. The large toy in Val's hands looked back at him with bright, terrified glass eyes that pointed in four different directions, distinctly grimacing mouths, lolling felt tongues and stitches bursting at the seams. There was a jaunty purple bow around its neck, and a distinct odor of decay emanating from its skin. Filia gasped and took a step back, hand to breast. Gourry's eyes bugged out, Lina and Zelgadis gagged, Amelia swooned and even Zelas looked taken aback.

"It's a two-headed sheep carcass!" Xellos declared proudly, "I killed and stuffed it myself!"

Val giggled and gnawed on the lamb happily. Filia pitched forward as if she might retch, and then gained some semblance of control over herself.

"Val, honey," she said in a tight, strangled voice, trying to extract the now soggy taxidermy from his grasping mouth and hands, "Why don't we open one of your other presents, and let Xellos's sit over here for now?"

"NO!" Val shouted and held on tighter.

"He likes it!" crowed Xellos in a voice filled with either delight or mischief.

Amelia, hand to mouth, raced in the direction of the bathroom.

Filia braced a leg on the table and yanked with all her strength just as Val became more interested in playing with Gourry's armor. Filia flew backwards onto the floor, clutching the toy abomination to her chest and panting. She hastily attempted to wrap the sheep in her apron.

"_Please_, someone give him another present before he remembers about this one!"

* * *

Zelas extracted a small, badly wrapped parcel from somewhere, (Filia really didn't want to know where, exactly) under her robes.

"Happy Birthday, Small Person," she coughed smokily at Val, patting him awkwardly on the head, "Be sure to share with your mother. She looks like she could use it."

Filia looked aghast at the bottle that Val had just unwrapped and was now biting industriously.

"You gave my son a bottle of cognac for his _first birthday_?" Filia gaped, noting, despite herself, the expensive label and the impressive year.

Zelas shrugged her tan shoulders and lit a new cigarette off the butt of her old one, "He has to start somewhere! I was going to buy him a box of cigars too, but I needed to have a present ready for next year."

Filia started to lecture, stopped, remembered who she was speaking to and managed to squeak out, "Well, I'll just set this aside for a special occasion."

"Bullshit!" declared Zelas imperiously, waving her cigarette wildly and nearly blinding Gourry in the process, "What's the damn point of invading a kingdom to get the kid a nice bottle of booze if _I_ don't get to drink any of it?"

"Hear, hear!" managed Lina, around a large slice of cake.

Filia sighed, defeated, and dragged herself into the kitchen to find glasses.

* * *

"To Val!" Lina shouted in a strident yell that set Filia's eardrums ringing.

"To Val!" shouted the other partygoers, although Zelas's incoherent slur sounded a bit more like "To Hell!" which Filia really didn't want to think about. She was already there.

"To Filia!" shouted Amelia, raising her glass again and toppling into Zelgadis.

"To Filia!" shouted the others, except Zelas, who managed "To Fibula!"

Xellos caught Filia's eye, smiled, and gave her a single, private wink across the room.

Filia, standing helplessly in the midst of the more and more inebriated party, found herself warm and blushing despite the chaos around her.

* * *

Later that night, after seeing off the somewhat tipsy guests, rocking the still exuberant Val to sleep and downing several cups of tea liberally doctored with Val's birthday cognac, Filia's shaking was beginning to subside and she was even coming around to Xellos's proclamation that Val's party had been an overwhelming success.

He reached across the table to pry the bottle from her grip and spiked his own tea.

"You've got to learn to relax a little more," he was lecturing genially, "Although it was very nice of you to provide me and my mother a delicious alternative to chocolate cake."

Filia tried to gather up the energy to punch him, but finally decided that it was too much work.

"It was a good party," she managed finally, "even if your mother did get totally smashed and set Gourry's hair on fire, and Lina ate all the food I had set aside for the month and Zelgadis got drunk and morose and barely spoke and you gave Val a dead sheep."

"It was not any old dead sheep!" Xellos protested with great dignity, although Filia could see the corners of his mouth twitching as he tried to suppress a grin, "I carefully skinned and processed it myself!"

Filia glared at him, "You are _totally_ sick, you know that?"

"Yes. But that's one of the reasons you love me. Think how bored you would be to be with living with someone as moral and proper as yourself."

Filia considered this honestly.

"Pretty bored, I guess. But I should have eased my way in, I suppose, instead of launching head-first into your world."

"Nonsense. Head-first is the way I am best experienced!"

Filia snorted tea out of her nose and regarded him with mock horror above the rim of her cup, but couldn't stifle a giggle.

A far-away, glazed look suddenly washed over Xellos's violet eyes.

"I'll be right back," he murmured in a voice many miles away, "Lord Beastmaster is calling me urgently, to 'pick her up a bottle of Chianti, a pack of smokes and a bottle of aspirin.'"

He vanished without a trace, leaving Filia chuckling after him.

When Xellos phased back into the kitchen a few long hours later, she was slumped over the table, snoring softly and muttering in her sleep.

Because no one could see him, and because he really couldn't help himself, anyway, Xellos allowed a small, tender smile to flit across his face before he gathered her gently up and carried her to bed.

Then he quietly slipped into Val's room and tucked the sheep under the boy's sleeping arm, hoping fervently that Filia would come in to check on him during the night.

It had been an _excellent_ party.

* * *

**AN:**

**Why did I write an improbable fic about Val's birthday party? Because I can! :D**

**1. I always assume Gourry would be awesome with kids.  
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**2. Zelas is just there to raid Filia's liquor cabinet.**

**3. I added the dragon cuisine joke due to a discussion I had earlier today about the relationships between different kinds of dragons that I couldn't stop thinking about!**

**4. Xellos's present is based on an actual stuffed sheep a friend of mine has. It is an abomination of nature, but every time I look at it, I can't help feeling a little sorry for it. Sorry if this was at all gross. I think taxidermy is hilarious, but that's just me.**

**5. I love birthday presents that are thinly veiled presents for the giver. I always used to get my family CDs that _I_ wanted for birthdays. Thus the cognac.**


End file.
